It was supposed to be a tank that swims, a new way for the Marines to storm hostile beaches.

The vehicle was conceived to carry Marines ashore and move inland without pausing on the beach. It has faced problems in combining its land and sea technology. But as military budgets come under pressure, the 38-ton landing craft that turns into an assault vehicle seems destined to be the next bit of high-tech wizardry to bite the dust.

Pentagon and industry officials say the defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, is poised to cancel the long-delayed $14.4 billion program on Thursday, when he is expected to announce a new round of belt-tightening at the Pentagon. The hybrid vehicle, being built by General Dynamics, is the most expensive weapons system to be cut since Mr. Gates canceled or trimmed three dozen programs in April 2009.

Mr. Gates is also likely on Thursday to approve a two-year delay in the Marine Corps version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, the militarys largest program, and spell out how he plans to save up to $100 billion on the Pentagons operations.

The military is facing intensifying political and economic pressures to restrain its budget, and Mr. Gates has sought to contain the demands by ending troubled weapons systems and squeezing more efficiency out of the Pentagons bureaucracy to pay for other programs. But Congress will have the final say on many of the decisions, including the fate of the hybrid Marine vehicle, and it remains hard to tell how it will balance the fiscal demands with

I can only guess at the EFV's developmental problems. But they would be educated guesses since I am a former Army infantry officer as well as a systems engineer who has been working for several years in developing complex systems.

EFV seems to fundamentally suffer from overambitious requirements. They want a vehicle that can operate on land as an APC but do 25 knots in the water and carry half a platoon of jarheads. Good grief!

What kind of administration is it that will spend it’s
money feeding unproductive voters, but protecting
some poor shit scared jarhead assaulting an armed
foreign shore in the deployment of foreign policy
gets his protection cut in the name of “Budget”?

12
posted on 01/06/2011 6:30:07 AM PST
by tet68
( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)

The idea that EVERY military program is good and canceling ANY of them is treason is intellectually unsustainable.

100% agree. Knee-jerk reaction is always to attack anything that 'appears' to be an 'attack' on the military. What is often lost in these stories, is that these 'technologies' are usually, in most cases, not 'fielded systems'. The military is not using them. They are being developed by civilian agencies/corporations with contracts from the military. The little known skeleton in the closet is that military-contracted civilian R&D is routinely plagued by cost overruns and delays, especially when developing 'hardware systems' (ie. vehicles, planes, ships, etc). This is why when cost cutting is done to the military research budget, hardware systems are usually the first to get the axe. Just look at what happened to the Future Combat Systems program, they were planning for 14 new vehicle platforms and they got gutted.

15
posted on 01/06/2011 6:59:59 AM PST
by LoneStarGI
(Vegetarian: Old Indian word for "BAD HUNTER.")

Col. Robert Laurel Smith: In summation, what you have before you is...Sgt. Fanning: A troop transport that can't carry troops, a reconnaissance vehicle that's too conspicuous to do reconnaissance...Lt. Colonel James Burton: And a quasi-tank that has less armor than a snow-blower, but carries enough ammo to take out half of D.C. THIS is what we're building?

I have followed the EFV program strictly from the point of view of project management. It was doomed form the start. To many requirements and too small an envelope. People have to learn to take baby steps and not throw the kitchen sink on top of every project. Running it as an old style big project also sealed it's fate. The Marines should of gone to some one like the Howe brothers for extensive proof of concept work rather than design it, build it, and find out it wasn't worth a $hit.

“These globalists have been using cost cutting as an excuse to destroy our military, even though 57% of our tax dollars go to medicare/medicaid/social security”
****************************************************************************************************

I’m for eliminating all three entitlements. Chiefly because by the time I can get any, (25 years) there won’t be any
money left to fund them. So I get to fund the post WWII
Baby Boomers who are retiring at a rate of TEN
THOUSAND! a day for the next NINETEEN years.

So go ask them to give all that up and then we can spend as much as we like on swimming tanks.

They work well on the ocean, beach, and other open areas, but they require an ungodly footprint for the weight they carry. A hovercraft APC, with ARMOR, would be insanely huge and not very maneuverable around trees, bushes, etc. They don’t turn on a dime, while a tracked or wheeled vehicle can pivot in place. Minor hits with small arms fire would degrade the lift skirts and cripple them. Not to mention the insane horsepower required to lift and move them.

Union labor will always drive the price of projects beyond a reasonable price for a finished project every time giving the libs and rinos all the ammunition they need to take an ax to any much needed piece of equipment.

The EFV was canceled because of the Navy's new SSC (Ship to Shore Connector) that will replace the current LCAC (Landing Craft Air Cushioned). The EFV was a good idea but impractical in terms of bad weather and required farther stand-offshore distances.

The reason for launching amphibious ops farther offshore is not because of land based missiles or arty. It is because we need to be over the horizon to avoid most land-based radar detection. That's about 24 miles currently and we would prefer 40 miles.

Here's a look at the SSC:

http://www.ship2shoreconnector.com/

Also, there was no reliable way to predict cross currents and wave height in advance of the 24 mile travel time of the EFV.

Finally, having done a beach assault last year from an LCAC, I cannot imagine the rough ride you would get in a much smaller EFV.

I hope the SSC is faster and better able to handle rough water, the LCAC was a nightmare.

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